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Thousands of migrants fled the fires in the early morning hours of Wednesday that devastated an overcrowded camp by the closure of the coronavirus on the Greek island of Lesbos, but were not reported injured.
An official from the Migration Ministry said that the Moria camp, which houses more than 12,000 people, “is probably completely destroyed” and that the government is struggling to locate some other shelter for the migrants who had accumulated in the streets in the air. free from the camp.
The cause of the fires is not yet known, but the government is investigating whether they were intentionally started. Athens has put Lesbos in a state of emergency and sent police reinforcements to the island, which is right next to Turkey, for assistance.
The fireplace was lit shortly after, and in the early hours of Wednesday, most of the camp was a smoking mass of burning boxes and tents, with others searching the rubble for their belongings.
It is not known where the 35 migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 this week are located, raising considerations that they would possibly spread the virus on the island.
“There are still no several chimneys in the camp. The migrants threw stones at the firefighters who were trying to put out the chimneys. The cause is under investigation,” Constantine Theophilopoulos, the leader of the chimneys in the North Aegean Sea, told ERT TV.
The camp was quarantined last week after an asylum seeker tested positive and authorities showed 35 infections through Monday night.
Initial reports recommend that fires broke out in locations in the sprawling camp after the government tried to isolate other people who had tested positive for COVID-19.
“The camp has been evacuated. All those other people are on the national road to (the city of) Mytilini,” said Panagiotis Deligiannis, a witness of Moria.
“There are police who do not let them pass. These other people sleep right and left in the field. ” Humanitarian teams have long criticized the situation in the camp, which is hosting more than 4 times its declared capacity, saying it is to enforce social distancing and fundamental hygiene measures.
‘Out of control’
Lesbos was put in a state of emergency for 4 months for reasons of public aptitude, said Civil Protection, which allowed it to mobilize all forces to the island and the asylum seekers.
Mytilini Mayor Stratis Kytelis said migrants must be transferred or accommodated on boats to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“The scene is out of control,” police officer Argyris Syvris told Open TV, adding that the police had been forced to release another 200 people who were to be repatriated to their country.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held an emergency assembly on the situation, and the Interior and Migration Ministers visited Lesbos.
Government spokesman Stelios Petsas told state televisionERT that citizens of the Moria camp would not be allowed to leave the island due to the coronavirus outbreak.
EU Internal Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said the European Union had agreed to finance the early transfer of 400 un escorted young people and adolescents to the Greek continent.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called the fires a “humanitarian catastrophe” and said EU member states are in a position to host some of the camp’s refugees.
Lesbos on the front line of a large movement of refugees and migrants to Europe in 2015-16.
(REUTERS)